The default Search Center above might be enough for some sites (hey, the minimalist approach works for Google), but with some work, you can turn this into a Search Center that is useful enough for users to set it as their home page. You can get a lot of good ideas from the white paper How Microsoft IT Deployed FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, especially the Enterprise search center article. This screenshot from the white paper provides an example of what you can do with your Search Center. FAST Search Server will give you a richer experience on the search results page, but the items you see on this Search Center are achievable with SharePoint 2010—or even SharePoint 2007. To create a Search Center that is the go-to place for your users, you can add helpful information such as links to event calendars, corporate news, campus maps, benefits, expense reporting, and research portals.

In our experience, SharePoint Search can deliver high-value services to users throughout an organization. SharePoint, particularly with its distributed and cloud capabilities, can now provide exceptional information access across a wide range of on premises and remote worker use cases.

However, only a handful of consulting services firm have the technical expertise and hands-on experience necessary to deploy a SharePoint solution in a matter of days. Search Technologies has implemented hundreds of SharePoint Search solutions, and the firm’s technical staff knows how to move through a project from its inception to its customization and optimization in an efficient manner.

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining
and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky.
He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues
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"beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site
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